Fantasy Fiction

[ghostposts]

http://www.pantheon.org/

A good place to start.

[Shi'ark]

And here’s a good place to continue.

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

ah, well then there you go. i always wondered between Dune or the spice mines of Kessel which were older. heh.

Leave it to Lucas to not have an original thought in all of his star wars films. and yet, he had the nerve to sue the creators of battlestar galactica for being "too similar" to star wars.

Your like this one E_D.origins of star wars

[emeraldlonewoulf]

I'm sure several of you have read selections from the Dragonlance series, by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss. (Dungeons and Dragons creators) What do you think? I do the think the elf, fairie, wizard, dragon stuff has been over done, as stated above, but they seem to have pulled it off, adding other character types and making their adventures and individual characters believable. Tasselhoff Burrfoot is awesome. I just started the third book, my roommate has the series.

[Nike]

worst excesses of fantasy?

I've read 10 books by Eddings, the Belgariad Saga and the following one.
I started with book one, and it had not much to say. Ok, I thought, it's book one of five. I read book two, which had not much to say, too. I thought ok, but it s 5 books, a longer story, there have to be some surprises at the end, and I have already read 2...
i'll switch to book five. No surprises at all, just a note on the next saga.I wanted to know what that child, Erion (I think?), was all about.
For some reason I was totally sure there had to be a bigger plot, the big surprise, something.
5 books later I had admit to myself, however, that there was none. I had waisted a lot of time.
Some passages were nice, some characters funny, but the whole thing had nothing to say, and you knew from the first page on how the whole thing would end - I was waiting for surprises,for being fooled - nothing.
I wasn't fond of the style, too.
No more Eddings.

[ExistentialDisorder]

Originally Posted by Shi'ark

And here’s a good place to continue.



Your like this one E_D.origins of star wars

ok, so basically Lucas stole every scene of his movies from some other movie, and just reworded it a little bit. man, that pisses me off. big time. i mean, i've pretty much always known that he "borrowed" concepts from various sources - a lot of writers do that, and in some ways its almost impossible not to at some point or another. but that site shows side-by-side comparisons of just about every scene in all 6 films. it's bad enough that he couldn't even come up with his own visual interpretations of his characters, and instead relied on a team of artists for everything significant, but jesus...

so, has lucas received the world's richest HACK award yet?

[psychopenguin]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

I, personally, would never write about that. it's weak and rather pathetic. not to mention extremely dated and boring.

I was making a generalization. I don't write with that specific story-line either. Generally my writings go more along the lines of Heaven vs. Hell or Demons vs. Angels... with my own twists and turns. *shrug* I don't do the damsel in distress either. I go more for gender benders than anything. Though every now and then I'll add a heroine that's rather pathetically female and girlish or a true "man's man".

[winged_dreams]

I want to write a story featuring nothing but fantasy stereotypes along with a cliched plot.

[ExistentialDisorder]

Lucas already did that, Winged.

[Shi'ark]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

ok, so basically Lucas stole every scene of his movies from some other movie, and just reworded it a little bit. man, that pisses me off. big time. i mean, i've pretty much always known that he "borrowed" concepts from various sources - a lot of writers do that, and in some ways its almost impossible not to at some point or another. but that site shows side-by-side comparisons of just about every scene in all 6 films. it's bad enough that he couldn't even come up with his own visual interpretations of his characters, and instead relied on a team of artists for everything significant, but jesus...

so, has lucas received the world's richest HACK award yet?

Lucas has never denied what Star wars is, a retelling of old stories. A 20th century mythology. There are no new stories any more it all comes from inspirations. How many film makers has Lucas inspirited? How many people on this sight?
Even my own work doesn’t come from nothing.

[ExistentialDisorder]

yeah, that's a good point, Shi'ark. still tho, you would think that something as huge as the star wars saga, there would be something original behind it. And there is truth in the idea that no story, regardless of genre, can be completely original. especially now. there's going to be something in it that is recycled from something else, even cross-genre. or, inspired, i guess is the more accepted term.

there are seven concepts or plots that all stories fall into. i can't remember exactly what the term for it is right now, and it's probably something quite simple. but regardless, it doesn't matter what the story is about, how it begins or ends or what takes place in between, it will always fall into one or more of those 7. kind of limiting, if you think about it.

[Morrigan_Dubh]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

there are seven concepts or plots that all stories fall into. i can't remember exactly what the term for it is right now, and it's probably something quite simple. but regardless, it doesn't matter what the story is about, how it begins or ends or what takes place in between, it will always fall into one or more of those 7. kind of limiting, if you think about it.

Do you mean the 7 parts of a plot?

1. Exposition
2. Inciting moment
3. Rising action
4. Climax
5. Peripeteia (turning point)
6. Falling action
7. Denouement or Catastrophe

Indeed, Lucas admitted that he was heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress".

Referring to the original post, what about Terry Pratchett? Now there's an author with a fresh twist on fantasy. I felt the same as many posters here about the Fantasy genre: The more I read, the less impressed I became. I started with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's "Fighting Fantasy" role-playing books when I was 10 or so, then moved onto the Hobbit, and became a Tolkien freak in my teens. Nothing else really captured my imagination until I read Pratchett. Clever, sharp, witty, colourful, and prolific are all words used in his work. I mean, words I'd use to describe his work

[Corpus_Draconis]

No, these are basic plot lines, like a quest, or... I forget the other 6... and every (and if not, almost every) story in history can be put into one of these. They're not parts of a plot.

Terry Pratchett is frikkin awesome. I need to read more by him.

I also highly recommend Guy Gavriel Kay. He did the Fionavar Tapestry (trilogy), the Sarantine Mosaic (duology, dulogy? two books anyway), Tigana, Song for Arbonne, etc. They don't have elves and dwarves and dragons, just magic in some books, fleeting appearances of Gods in others, an Arthurian style, etc. Sarantine Mosaic is interesting, because it is based heavily on the history of Rome and Byzantium, and if you know some of it, such as the moving of the capital and the Hagia Sophia (sp?) you can see it in the book.

Dragonlance is fluff. I read about 15 books of that series. It's got just about everything in it: female knights, sick caustic mages with slow muscly brothers, damsels who un-damselifiy, rigourously-honour-bound knights, a plethora of gods and goddesses ranging from bright, white, pretty, impressive "good" gods, to ugly, five-headed, destructive "evil" gods, and neutral ones in between. It has the clearly defined categories of "good," "neutral" and "evil," and the dispositions of elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. fall neatly into those categories without much variance. The dragons also fall cleanly into "good" and "evil." And they do nothing with these. They just make them run around and kill things and have relationship problems. The characters also way too weepy. Makes for irritating drama that isn't even treated well.
I think my favourite character would have to be Raistlin, though. He's just damn cool.

Also, don't bother with Terry Goodkind (what is it with fantasy writers named Terry?). He's milking that Sword of Truth series for all it's worth. His characters are irritating. Richard is an idiot who, whenever he does something stupid, it ends up working out for him. His idiocy is also Richard's only weakness. Richard is the ruler of most of the land where it takes place (an other one of those squallor-princes), as well as being the first "War-wizard" in about 3000 years, as well as being the "only true" weilder of this incredibly pwerful sword. It's also an anti-communist-pro-hardcore-capitalist rag. Not that I'm pro-communism (Human nature makes it nigh-impossible), but then I'm not pro-anything. Every governmental or economic system we have sucks, escept maybe subsistance farming. But Goodkind's just making it way too bad, like he's one of those people who was heavily influenced by propaganda and is now an ignorant hater. Born-again capitalist? I don't know. He also does things like insert a culture in which saying "nice boobs" is one of the highest compliments a woman can receive. Anyway, he's dragging it on. It showed some promise in the beginning, but now it's just like "Ok, kill the guy already."

Sorry, I hate Goodkind's books.

Anyway, I recommend Guy Gavriel Kay and Terry Pratchett. They're both cool.

[angel011]

I can't stand Goodkind's books either.

His concept of a "good guy", say Richard, is: Richard wife is taken captive, and in order to get to her and save her, he reduces about thousand people (or was it several thousands?) into ashes within seconds. Destroying thousand human beings in order to save one life, and not even for a moment feeling guilty about it, not even thinking about it -- and that's the good guy? Eek.

[Morrigan_Dubh]

Originally Posted by Corpus_Draconis

Dragonlance is fluff.

Agreed. I dabbled in it for a little while - read some short stories -Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes- and the Chronicles Trilogy. I also started the Twins Trilogy but gave up after the first book. It just seemed to me like a jaded franchise by that stage.

I think my favourite character would have to be Raistlin, though. He's just damn cool.

He was without a doubt the most interesting and complex (as Dragonlance goes) character.

Anyone read Julian May? I find her work very original. It's rich in descriptive detail, but even if that's not your thing, the characters are quite twisted. Her Saga of the Exiles trilogy is the closest to being classifiable as fantasy.
The setting is Earth - 6 million years BC, the Pliocene era - habited by two races of aliens that have immigrated and settled on earth. The two alien tribes are hostile towards each other. One has developed a sophisticated and yet fantasy-like society (they have machines but don't know how they work), the other is living a cruder lifestyle. Enter "metapsychic" humans, who have discovered a one-way hole in time from the 21st century. The story follows the very different trials of an assortment of humans as they deal with the unexpected find at the other side of the time-gate.
It is heavily influenced by Irish Celtic mythology. A number of the characters have or take on the attributes of the gods and goddesses of this pantheon in extremely imaginative and realistic ways. What I liked most about it is that each character is developed and drawn in a believable and human way (even the non-humans). There is so much thought and background put into the setting that it is fascinating and leaves you wanting to know more. And the style of writing is excellent.

Just one word for it - "Supoib"

And here is the wiki entry on it if you want to know more. But I'd recommend you just go read the books!

[Phayte]

I love the sword of truth books, but they are flawed. Everything drags on for so long, and how many damn times are Richard and Khalan going to be torn apart or kept apart or something else. It's getting irritating.

[chloegoth]

I think Robert Jordan wins the excess award. I mean, really. 11 volumes in the Wheel of Time series? Seriously... And they're all badly written.

(My brother is a huge RJ nut - he's in one of those Wheel of Time societies and everything)

[emeraldlonewoulf]

Ok, I'm on about the fifth or sixth Dragonlance book now, and, the first three seemed pretty cool, but it's starting to get monotonous. No really new stuff at all.

I would have to agree that Raistlin is cool as fuck though. I think what i like most about his character is his intensity. He does things of his own free will, and doesn't really give a shit about what anyone else thinks. He revels in who and what he is, and sees who he is clearly. He has no self deception as to his motives.

[Morrigan_Dubh]

Hey Emeraldlonewoulf,
Where is your sig quote from? It sounds like typical Terry Pratchett. He's good at sending up stock fantasy devices like such austere pronouncements.

[Dead Angel]

Originally Posted by PhilSmith

What do you think are the worst excesses of fantasy fiction these days? I'll get the ball rolling by pointing out what irritates me.

I like to think I'm a fan of fantasy, but I've come to realise that the more of it I read the less I like; so far, out of the Big Names (tm) the only writers I've enjoyed at all are Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake (even though he wasn't really what I'd call a fantasist), Roger Zelazny, Clark Ashton Smith and to a lesser extent, J.R.R. Tolkien.

It just seems to me that there's a lot of repetition; so much sub-Tolkien rubbish seems to be churned out before the novel horks up a handful of dwarves (with requisite beards and axes as per spec) or shits out a load of elves that are pointy-eared, magical and attuned with nature. Is it some kind of law now that elves, dwarves and dragons are pre-requisites for fantasy? Worse yet, do characters from these groups have to be defined merely by beard-length, ear-pointiness or breath temperature?

I'll stop there lest I get myself all wound up again.

Do'Urden.. may the name burn along with the name of nero and Cladius.

[Sobeh]

An old one, but this book is one of the best novels to turn those tired and bored fantasy cliches into a great read: Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward. Look for it - in essence, the book starts out with Good and Light having already won, and some rather neutral un-hero-like folk trying to bring it back for balance. Good stuff.

For some REAL good fantasy try the Coldfire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman, which offers a unique backdrop for a fantasy story.

The reason I bring these up is because they each, in their own way, turned the fantasy genre on its ear and had a good time doing it, and doing it skillfully. I also think Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint have both done great things with the urban fantasy genre, and I'd suggest that currently this was a better genre than 'pure' fantasy.

[A Simple Poet]

Has anyone read Charles De Lint? I have not, but I understand that his books (though marketed to the adolescent audience), are rather unique and tend to modernize the fantasy genre a bit. I would be interested to hear the opinions of others regarding his work.

I host a similiar thread on another message board where we try to hash out the differences between fantasy and sci fi. I feel most fantasy written these days is merely regurgitated trash that employs far too much cliche. I find most themed fantasy novels which use a D&D theme to be dull (except for Salvatore...his early Icewind books weren't bad at all).

[emeraldlonewoulf]

To Morrigan_Dubh : I'm not really sure where it came from, that's why there's no source for it. My man used to say this once in a while, when the situation seemed to suit, I think it originally came from a movie.

[Morrigan_Dubh]

Originally Posted by A Simple Poet

Has anyone read Charles De Lint? I have not, but I understand that his books (though marketed to the adolescent audience), are rather unique and tend to modernize the fantasy genre a bit. I would be interested to hear the opinions of others regarding his work.

I've never heard of him, but I'm reminded of Philip Pullman and his "His Dark Materials" trilogy. It's marketed primarily at a younger audience, probably because the protagonists are children, but the writing is superb, and his ideas are original and inspiring.

[emeraldlonewoulf]

I recognize the authors' name, it brings to mind a story i read, although i can't remember the title. It had a more modern day setting, involved witches and little people, tied into the whole celtic/ driudic thing, and as i recall, it was quite good.

[emeraldlonewoulf]

Also, it involved a reading of a book that changed with the reading and the reader, supposedly written/ discovered byt he grandfather of the main character.